As it was, Winckelmann became to him something like what
Virgil was to Dante. And Winckelmann, with his fiery friendships, had
reached that age and that period of culture at which emotions hitherto
fitful, sometimes concentrate themselves in a vital, unchangeable
relationship. German literary history seems to have lost the chance of
one of those famous friendships, the very tradition of which becomes a
stimulus to culture, and exercises an imperishable influence.
In one of the frescoes of the Vatican, Raffaelle has commemorated the
tradition of the Catholic religion. Against a strip of peaceful sky,
broken in upon by the beatific vision, are ranged the great personages
of. Christian history, with the Sacrament in the midst. Another fresco of
Raffaelle in the same apartment presents a very different company, Dante
alone appearing in both. Surrounded by the muses of Greek mythology,
under a thicket of myrtles, sits Apollo, with the sources of Castalia at
his feet. On either side are grouped those on whom the spirit of Apollo
descended, the classical and Renaissance poets, to whom the waters of
Castalia come down, a river making glad this other city of God.
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